A tribute to the Land Girls of the Second World War

PAYING tribute to The Women’s Land Army a new book by Joan Mant draws on the reminiscences of hundreds of land girls to reveal their wartime farm experiences.

PUBLISHED: PUBLISHED: 00:01, Mon, Feb 18, 2013

three members of the Women's Land Army are helping in the picking of runner beans in 1940

From the heavy work they had to endure to the camaraderie and pride they felt, this is their story in their own words.

WHY DID WE DO IT?Kathleen Ellis recalls: “From the perfumery department to a cowshed was certainly a change but I knew I wouldn’t stay as a shop assistant and that I would have to do some kind of war work. My boyfriend, who was an engineer copilot on Halifaxes, barred me from joining the forces and in those days I did as he said, so I didn’t think he would object to the Land Army and I joined. My mother and father were horrified as I had never been away from home before and when my posting came through to go to Woodstock, near Oxford, I’m sure my mother thought it was outer Mongolia.”

THE HAZARDSOlga Tremayne was told that more girls were invalided out of the Land Army than the other services and the numbers were “kept quiet”.She adds: “People used to say to me, ‘What a nice healthy job’ but I had more things wrong with me than in civilian life. I fell from a rick and sprained my arm and caught athlete’s foot from having wet feet.

I was almost dragged under an iron wheel by my raincoat and I had two encounters with bulls. One chased me up the yard and I got into a shed just in time and the other pinned me into a corner, when luckily I had a bale of straw in my arms into which he was digging his horns.”

HOW WE LIVEDThe great divide in the WLA was between those who were sent to private billets and those posted to hostels. The latter worked and lived together, the former on farms or market gardens, sometimes alone or with two or three others.

Joyce Whiteley, along with her friends Joan and Alice, was billeted with an elderly lady: “She could hardly cope with the appetites we acquired after a day working in the open air. All day we managed on a couple of cheese or beetroot sandwiches and a piece of cake. There was no bathroom and no hot water to wash in except on Saturdays. On that day we were allowed a pint mug each of hot water for our all-over washes before we dressed up ready to go to the Corn Exchange for the dance. After a week of physically hard work we needed every drop of that water!”

Cynthia Banbury was in a hostel.“The sleeping arrangements were spartan to say the least, mine was the top bunk, wooden slats and about two inches of strawfilled palliasse in place of a spring mattress. Two rough army blankets, no sheets or pillow case.”

Women's Timber Corps Training Camp At Culford, Suffolk

“I enjoyed my time in the Land Army and learned a lot which came in very handy when I married a farmer."

Margaret Collyer

LIVING WITH THE BOMBING It was a common misconception that once you joined the Land Army you were removed from the immediate effects of enemy action.

As Nancy Johnson recalls: “Many people seemed to think that because we worked on the land we escaped the horrors of war but in my case I was near the Thames Estuary and in line for the bombing of London. Many months were spent sleeping in an air-raid shelter and many times I crouched down by the tractor or stood under a tree thinking I might get some protection from the bombs.”

However not all scares from the air came from enemy action.

Julia Porteous recounts: “I once got a terrible fright with a very low-flying plane that came over the byre while we were milking. The machines were kicked off by the cows and they were all in a state of shock and the calves broke out and ran wildly up the field.

“It turned out to be an American pilot saluting his fiancée who was the schoolmaster’s daughter. He did not think of the commotion and fright he gave everyone as we did not know if it was the Germans or not. There was an apology from him in the local paper the next week.”

THESE YOU HAVE LOVED – OR NOTThe girls who worked with the Women’s Lady Army usually managed to find a rapport with their landladies and especially the younger members of the families with whom they were billeted.

Most looked after them, laughed with them and listened tolerantly to their tales of woe. However, at times the attitudes of the men and women they encountered were unexpected and occasionally hostile.

Evelyn Waight remembers: “The older men on the farm resented us very much and there were a few scenes and graffiti on carts etc. But eventually when the farm was sold these same men were in tears as we shook hands with them.”

Elsie Druce leaves us with an unforgettable picture: “Mr Robson was always a bit too keen to get cosy with his Land Girls and even though he had a wooden leg he could move pretty fast and get up a good turn of speed round the barn.

I found the best way to deal with this was to get a long way ahead then call out, ‘Mrs Robson, could you come out please, for a minute?’”

Thousands of women worked on the land during the Second World War to keep the country supplied

DAIRY FARMING To the uninitiated dairy farming meant sitting on a stool beside a cow, milk fl owing as if by magic into a bucket between the knees.

However, the Land Girls learned that udders had to be washed, dairy equipment scrubbed, milk pails hoisted to pour the milk into the cooler, records kept of the milk yield of each cow, and sometimes they had to deliver milk nearby after the churns had been rolled outside to be collected.

Joy Morgan had training for milking and mentions a common hazard: “My first job after training was in Gloucester on a dairy farm and I delivered the milk with a pony and cart around the town. In those days people were very shocked because I wore short shorts! I worked usually a six-day week approximately 12 hours a day, sometimes 14, and this was the norm for most of my time in the Land Army. I was frequently kicked and squashed by cows and chased by many a bull and not only the four-legged kind. Many a farmer thought their dreams had come true when my friend and I turned up. We soon put them right on this score.”

TRACTOR DRIVING Doris Hall describes learning to drive a tractor for the fi rst time: “We went up and down the field three times. The chappie said, ‘Now, do you think you can manage it?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ I said, ‘no problem.’

With that he jumped off saying, ‘I’m just off home for a cup of tea.’ I think I must have circuited the field 100 times before he reappeared.

‘But you didn’t tell me how to stop it!’”

AND AFTERWARDS After her experience Margaret Collyer never returned to an indoor life: “I enjoyed my time in the Land Army and learned a lot which came in very handy when I married a farmer. I still love the life and at over 70 I still have my ponies.

I breed Shetland ponies and have two retired riding horses, one 30 and the other 33 years, so my days are full looking after them.”